[EitB LVIII] Und wenn sie nicht gestorben sind - Xist Fairy Tales

[Qgqqqqq]

Quick note that XP gains is scaled by gamespeed.

There are a few ways to gain a sea serpent - can't comment on what happened here.

Hell terrain spread depends on the AC. It requires a high spread to spread to Good land, lower for neutral and Evil, and none for those following AV.

[RefSteel]

Thanks for the reports - and sorry I've been away/quiet. At least I can confirm that yes, cities achieve Legendary Culture on Quick speed at 25K culture, just like in BtS, and (also just like BtS) getting three such cities is the requirement for a Cultural victory.

(Also, as Q says, there are more ways than I would have supposed for a player to end up with a Sea Serpent.)

[EDIT: Also, it might be because of the Kurios, but I believe all FfH cities' culture can extend up to three rings away from their home landmass, unlike BtS where it's restricted to two.]

[xist10]

And five days without a new post here.

Thanks for the comments.
25k means, Auro has a small problem here, because he is to slow.
And I wanted more or less to know if we need Hyborem for Hell Terrain or if Ashen Veil is enough.
Anyway, that is now moot.

Anyway, the next update.




Auroarcher not only accepted the Ashen Veil religion but also invited the demons (Infernals) with Hyborem.
Incidentally, this broke the old "Compact" that the gods (and direct servants of the gods) keep themselves from Erebus.

Since Hyborem is currently supposed to be the strongest militarily and unfortunately ended up right next to me, I give in.
I may also want to buy a strategic resource of Hyborem.




In this case, I pay for the 350 , not the 100 , which would be my first insticnt in nearly all cases in a backline city - this event is still taken from BTS.




This is because DaveV founded an exil city and he builds up some .
I do get "tribute" in form of my Deathmana. DaveV took the tile last turn. - Otherwise there would be a visit to my vampires.




Here you can see my heroic vampire.
I named the hero after the second of the first 2 vampires. Flauros and Alexis are the first vampires in Erebus and also 2 of the 3 possible leader for the Calabim.
I play Alexis, Flauros can run around on the map.

You can also see here which XP thresholds I strive for.
In the best case 37 XP for +115% with all 5 combat promotions and the +15% from guardsmen.
In addition, the very important Death2 for the Spectre summon.
The discount version would be without guard for 26 XP.
Let's see, I am slowly running out of to get the easy XP.




And I should see that I conjure up my Skeletons. In contrast to Spectres, these are permanent summons and can collect XP.
Although 3 units can no longer do much with + 70%. - Skeletons are Melee units and as such, they get Combat1 from my trait.
They are more or less chaff.




I haven't done that for a long time, an overview of the cities.

Relatively well-developed, I will soon have another Great Sage here.
But is only currently more important.
And I slowly reach vampire"saturation".
I will get problems to get this new vampires to 26 or even 17 XP.
Still, Death2 alone gives a semi strong summon, so I still build more vampires.




Nubia has also shrunk a bit.
The are primarily from inspiration.




Acai is still my largest city.
comes to 50% from the UB.




Morr'ta'nar got some time after Auroarcher gave up Bree.
But later a little more when I arrive at Bree.




Adonias is the next city without much . Sometimes I did set the cities badly, but I also have terrible terrain.

Thanks to the event the city with most for me.
In the medium term, I want to bring some here to take over the mana again.




San'ta'ron looks a little better than the city is.
The vampires have not yet reduced the population.




I like Pavu'nar a bit better.
I am currently building lumbermills in the forests, but I should soon build a few farms.




Krinera lies on the jungle river and looks very good.
Still, the swamps tiles with 1 - and 0 with jungle on top, are worse than plain tiles.




Itos is in a reasonable state ?
Thanks to the location, there were not many vampires in the city.




Ninismal is in a similar situation.




Slugdehome rebels again.
I think I can write off the Lifemana.
I strongly hope that Auro then dissolves the city.
If not, I have to seriously think about whether I take military steps.
The new city will create 40-50 per turn too.




After a little diplomatic back and forth, Bree was taken over by me for a short time.
I only built research here, I do not assume that this city will finish a building before it flips again.

I was asked 4 times in the 5 turn I have the city whether I could hand over the city to Auro.

[xist10]

In terms of research, I plan Masory-> Construction-> Sanitation.
This allows bridges, irrigation and +1 from farms.
In addition, the siege workshop, which would unlock chariots, a good attack unit. Still, for me Vampires are probably better.
Catapults get unlocked too and they are interesting, but too slow.

Then carnival to build the Grand Menagerie. Maybe even in Morr'ta'nar? Probably not, but the Menagerie would be 8 , plus 12 from the new cages and then +40% on top.
Still, I have to fight (more) than 80 from boths cities.

With 80 (+80 for the Carneval, which is a prerequisite for the cages) relatively cheap and brings +3 to every city.
After that I would probably want to research Iron Weapons for +1 for my vampires and Moroi. It just takes some time, especially Iron Working is expensive.
Maybe I could buy some iron from Hyborem ?
Hyborem should have Iron Working, but I don't think Hyborem has one - or even two - scources of Iron near his staring position, that I could buy some.
And then I'm unsure if I want to pay the prices the AI ask for strategic ressources.




On the mage reserch side, I found Alternation in Brandelines Well.
Free Tech is alwasy good, but I hoped for a great person - other than a Sage.
Alternation is interesting.
In general the wonder is very nice and Enchantmentmana is nice to have too. Additional +20% for my Melee units from a permanent (as long nobody dispels it) spell ?
Still nothing I would waste a rare Mana node on without access to Metamagic2 to change the mananode afterwards.
I do want to have one or two Enchantment adepts.


In the medium term, I hope that I can buy Chaosmana from Hyborem and Entropy from Davev.
This would unlock the Tower of Necromacy.
The Tower is a bit expensive, but this wonder would increase the of my skeletons by +1 (Strong) and the power of the Specter even by +2 (Strong +Death Affinity).




Demo is not that good.
I fed a few to the vampires and I'm losing demo values.




Hyborem did spawn here.
Quasi direct neighbor for me, Hyborem has the barbarian color.
I actually want to conquer the city, let's see if I'm faster.




I found Coldrain's army.
11 mages are already a statement.
In addition 11 chariots ? - with up to 6 ?

Coldrain has "only" 5 paramanders here and I think I can ignore them more or less.
6 is not a little, but it is also not really important.
8 defensively also uninteresting.
Either my vampires are uninjured, than I should win with more promotions or the are injured and then I think 4 should be enough to clean up.




The chariots are bad enough, but the problem should be the mages.
Up to 6 tiles movement - and engineering for 9 fields over roads is a research option - plus the summoning of 4 , 5 +50% units with collateral damage.

And with Combat5 on the mages, my summons cannot even win a straigt fight.
The same applies to my Moroi.

I do have hopes that I could win against that with a first strike on my side. But this still needs a few more turns.
I think I have right now less than 11 vampires.




And according to the demo, hyborem is even stronger.
Let's see, I think that looks like a win for Coldrain right now.




To complete the update, my civics again.

[Qgqqqqq]

Any immediate plans you're working towards?

[xist10]

Not really.
Not dying.
Everything else is on top.

I'm right now too weak to act, so I have to react. I do build up, but I think it's too slow ?
I'm the third strongest (fourth with Hyborem), but I have a third of coldrains might and half of Auros ?
And against coldrain, I can't even say I have better promoted units.

Before coldrain, I do want to move northwards and deal with Auros cultural pressure.
Right now, maybe attack coldrains flank when he moves towards Auro ?
They are already at war.

I see no reason right now to backstab DaveV on his last city - outside possible turn speed, which I detest in general as reason.
Bing could be the other option, but this will create a second front with coldrain.

[Jabah]

Do you have/plan to adopt a religion (i see you are in golden age) ?
From your pictures there are only 2 cities with religion inside, am I right ?

Regarding hell terrain, I am pretty sure killing Hyborem is not enough, once there are some it will progress according to AC and 'good/neutral/bad' owner. To remove it completly I guess you need to remove every single tiles with a spell (and keep AC low enough for it not to be a losing proposition).

[xist10]

Yes, I don't think I can escape hell terrain anymore as evil player.
I'm in a good position to fight hell terrain if I want to, but there is a chance it already invested the water and then I can get rid of it.

And I have no plans on the religion front.
Ashen Veil or Octupus priest have good spells, but I don't have the tech capacity to tech the tree needed techs (or four ? do I need only the priest tech or do I need the Relitech too ?)

[xist10]

I paste the update quickly. I do want to polish it later. There are a few problems if I only use the automated translation. You will see it. Please ignore the text till I have polished it in ~2h.




Next update, 5 turn in once.
T122 is relatively boring.
The only exciting thing is the fact that Auroarcher suggests a mana trade.
Spirit against life.
Both mana types are more likely to be located in the unimportant area.
Spirit1 is even a little better. Immune against fear and +10% healing ?

So I accept. I have one or two adepts with free promotions, I take the Courage from Spirit1.
Even if I would like to give a few adept Life1 against the hell terrain with Hyborem as my southern neighbors. I have forgotten so far, but I still have time and I would like to end the deal in 10 turns.

I also do not assume that Auro has all 4 Alterationmanatype together and to build the national wonder there.

The attentive reader - or reader of other threads - shouldn't also miss the 30 in the bottom right of the screenshot.




T123 finally sees construction for me.
Like in BtS, a key tech. In EitB even more important.
Bridges, Catapults, irrigation spread, chariots and windmills.
I do not like workshops, but they have a place too.




And with 30% on the Armageddoncounter (44/146), the second event of apocalysis occurs.
The Blight.




Up to 40% damage to all living units - and as you can see here, this has killed a recently tamed elephant.

This also affects civilian units that always have 100 HP or 0 HP in BTS. However, since there are only a few events/spells that can cause partial damage and can kill units and I don't expect any further, I let my workers remain damaged.




All cities also receive 10 + .
The are reduced by 1 per turn, but the world population will shrink.
I think the blight effect is game speed independet and as such, worse on faster speeds.

Anyway, I think I could profit a bit from the Blight.
In theory, I can store 20% more to regrow quickly and hopefully I can make sure that I will lose less to the Blight. I still feed my vampires.

Still bad.




Furthermore, I wanted to conquer this round of this barbstadt with a Spectre, a hunter and the horseman.
The hunter had ~ 80% chances last turn and the spectre should give the horseman good odds.
Unfortunately, this will be nothing this turn. My units need to heal.

And unfortunately the Blight does not affect the barbarians. So I can't attack next turn.

The axemen on 9 of the hunter dies to a specter from one vampire at the other Barbstadt.




And here will have the first look at Hyborem.

All units are demons, so that it is not alive and immune to death damage.
This means unfortunately, my Spectres are mostly useless.

Okay, Hyborem still has only 5 units which should create problems right now.
Hyborem itself and the 4 Eidolons.
The remaining units should be feasible. My vampires are better (promoted).
Hyborem also has access to iron weapons. - But this is easy to explain that the palace of the infernals has iron instead of a third mana.
But probably not for sale, so I still have to hope for a natural occurrence iron to buy it.
And there is currently no danger that Hyborem will snap away the Barbstadt. Hyborem starts at peace with barbarians.

The manes should be more or less for Hyborem. More on them when I have a fitting log entry.




Turn 124.
I am surprised not to be in the war with Coldrain.
Against the AI, collateral damge from spell would automatically be a declaration of war.
I think, this would even break forced peace.

And auroarcher receives a free tech.




However, I get the 3rd religion in a 3rd city and face a decision.
Do I convert to a religion without anarchy in the last turn ?




No. I need ~ 30 turn until I can do something with that - okay, priests and priest spells don't need a state religion, I think - but this does not change the fact that the research priority for (advanced) reli techs is probably too low.
And the same applies to my research rate right now.




T125.
Coldrain offers me a strange exchange.

I don't want to say Law is bad.
Law has -5% maintenance (cumulative) as a resource effect.
Law1 is ideal for Calabim, as this is counter to the Burning Blood of my Moroi.
And Law2 is a semi -permanent summoning.
Nevertheless, the fire balls - or alternatively Death2 spectres - should be better in nearly all cases and Law1 is more or less useless for coldrain, I think.
And for the national wonder, Coldrain should be missing even with the trade 2 of the 4 manatypes.

Anyway, I reject this.
I need neither the nor the and I connect marble this turn.
Okay, I do need the with the Blight right now, but I think that is still not enough for a mana.
I offer Law against Enchantment. +20% for melee from enchantment1 would be a welcome addition.




An event has a tempting offer.
I will have a 2nd copper source at the eastern Barbstadt and I have no gold right now.
But also no 31 .




And I don't understand Auro.
Auro should be clear that I cannot tolerate a Sludgehome from him.
Okay, this is not that clear but I think, I made it clear that I don't like the cultural pressure.
Krinera is culturally not better than Morr'tanar and I actually have to act against the pressure immediately.
Means military action with coldrain on the other border.
I would say nothing if Auro would have dissolve the city, but keeping ?
I still want no war, so I ask firstly per Diplo.

In retrospect, I am also not sure whether Auro had the option to accept the city.
The log entry is still the barbarian turn - unfortunately the horseman at the southern city was killed by an axemen. I think the chance for that should be near 50%.
So the city has probably flipped at the beginning of the turn and I play before Auro.

And Auro has now finally reached the endgame techs and creates 23 unit with the dragon.




Coldrain is marching further and attacks Auro.
And i really should start and invading the former belsaraph area.
Unfortunately, my vampires are not really in position yet.
And this are 14 mages and 12 chariots ?
More than I have right now.
But when I don't do anything I see slight problems for Auro and then for myself.




T125.
I thought about that a bit.
I don't think I can hold the city. I can raze it or I can take the diplo bonus with me.
I already have -4 through Coldrain and I do want to buy a strategic ressource.

With 2 vampires and thus 2 Specter to weaken the archers, the city was no problem.
The axe got take out by my hunter last turn.




Coldrain accepted the mana trade. - Source for 75% of my diplomalus with Hyborem.
Still, the Backstab should follow in ~ 4 rounds.




Hopefully Coldrain will be deep in Auro's area and can't hurry back.
4 turn are probably too slow ? Either Auro should have killed this or coldrain should won the attack and coldrain would be back in friendly (neutral) culture.
Maybe I can reduce it to 3 turn.




But it is still too little.




The Blight is now under control for now, the cities are growing again.

Afther the vampires, I'm thinking about building my growth buildings. They are expensive, but would acclerate my regrowth - or my further growth, because I think I will be grown a bit when I finished the buildings.

[xist10]

I'm finished with polishing. Sorry about that, but that was a bit easier for me to do it that way.